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November 8, 2008

What lawyers do when they are not billing you (a Selangor Bar Dinner & Dance '08 update)

With my staff at the entrance before the dinner

Usually I rarely involve myself with the Selangor Bar or the Bar Council for that matter, except for their Annual Meetings. This year, I had the oppurtunity to be involved in this year Selangor Bar Dinner & Dance as the chairperson of my Young Lawyers, Pupils Affair and IT Committees was out of commission as she had just gave birth to her third child. I am the sub-committee member, who had to do 'real' work for a change other than just saying 'aye!' at meetings when I need to oversee the soft launch of the Selangor Bar website which will be fully launch in January 2009.

For the past 2 weeks I was also chasing the deadline of my assignments in my post-graduate course at INCEIF that I had to juggle the two jobs together. As the chair of my Committee, Tina still oversees and approves everything but I was expected to liase with the vendor, which is eLawyer.com to ensure the smooth transition from the old vendor to them. There was also the launch presentation to contend with.

Our table

At 3pm on Saturday, 8.10.08, I was already at the Crystal Crown ballroom, somewhere in PJ where the Dinner & Dance was supposed to happened. Eddie Law of eLawyer.com was nowhere to be seen and Suraj the Social Event Committee Chairman was already asking me where is he. I called him and he arrived some 20 minutes later as he was going to straight away be there for the dinner. I had to go fetch my wife after.

While I was waiting, I watched the other performers rehearsing and doing sound-check which include Leina Hangat (back from the dead) who slipped in a line or two commenting on my bald head, the rock group, Reborn and some dancers.

We tested the presentation and seems to hit a wall when the sound from the Power Point presentation wouldn't come out. We had to go to the Digital Mall in PJ to burn the sound to a CD and give the CD to the AV unit which had coordinate with Eddie Law. When I sent him back it was already 5.45pm and I had to drop him at the hotel's entrance and hoped for the best.

My wife dressing was inspired by Mrs Field in Quantum of Solace...and I, the villain

When I arrived back at 7.45pm, I was greeted by the whole Selangor Bar Committee who was waiting for the VIPs which include the new Chief Judge and a few others from the judiciary. I checked with Eddie and he assured me that everything was okay. I checked with the secretariat on the coordination and hang-out with my partner who was the chaiperson of the Conveyancing Committees. She had to ushered the judges and overlook certain matters.

The night actually went on smoothly except when the hotel staff was heard arguing among themselves at the kitchen adjoining the hall when the Chief Judge was giving his speech. His speech started with him thanking that there was no reporter as he said the misquote him quite a lot. He then when on to tell the audience on how he plan to clear the courts backlog. Good luck to him who was also a lawyers.

Through the night there were four speeches including one by the Chief Judge, Tan Sri Dato' Seri Zaki;

The Chief Judge giving his speech

the Chairman of the Selangor Bar, Mr. Rajpal Singh;

Rajpal

the Committee of Social Event, Mr. Suraj; and the speech on behalf of Tina, by Sumathi who is the Honarary Secretary of Selangor Bar. These speeches were interlaced with performance by the dancers in Madri Gras style, after Michael Jackson opened the stage performance, followed by Leina Hangat (who had people go up the stage to be her dancers), some lawyer public bulletin by the team called the LegalAiders who want lawyers to help out in legal aids, the Comedy Court (who act out Parliamentarians in Malaysia to a T) and finally Reborn, the rock band (which I didn't watch as I had to send someone home).

Leina Hangat and her impromptu dancers

Opening Act dancers

Comedy Court holding court

The launch of the website happened after Sumathi's speech and it went off without a hitch. It was launched when the CJ and our Chairman pointed a laser pointer to the screen and the presentation was shown. You can take a look at the site at http://www.selangorbar.org/.

I will follow you....

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